Trending News: The Cost For A Drug To Treat Sick Kids Went Up By 2000% Overnight

Why Is This Important?

This isn’t the first time there’s been a price hike for important medication, and it’s unlikely it’ll be the last.

Long Story Short

There has been a price hike for a drug prescribed to infants in Canada with a rare form of epilepsy, jumping by 2,000% overnight, causing immediate — and justified — outrage.

Long Story

“This was just dropped like a bombshell,” Dr. Carter Snead, a neurologist at Toronto’s Hospital for Sick Children, told CBC News.

Infantile spasms, also known as West syndrome, is a rare form of epilepsy diagnosed in babies with seizures that result in abnormal bursts in the brain’s electrical activity. Last night, Canadian officials raised the price of the drug (Synacthen Depot, a special treatment) to 2,000%, which means one vial is now $680 from a previously affordable $33.05.

Not only has this enraged parents, medical specialists across the country are not too pleased with the efforts, since rapid treatment is vital concerning cases like these.

Treatment protocol usually begins with one drug, but it only works half of the time. Doctors then suggest Synacthen Depot, which is a long-acting form of the drug that is injected into the muscle, long off patent. Snead says this works 90% of the time.

The price of the drug is so high in Alberta, that the province delisted it in July, meaning Alberta doesn’t pay for the drug on its healthcare bill. Similar increases were reported in Ontario, Saskatchewan and British Columbia, causing further difficulties for the lives of children affected. Parents are concerned they’ll be forced to pay for some of the increase, which is thanks to the drug being bought for profit.

Synacthen Depot is owned by Mallinckrodt, a global pharmaceutical company that owns the rights to the drug is Canada. They credit a change in manufacturing for the increase, but didn’t respond to inquiries about the details about where the drug is manufactured, and the justifications behind increasing the price.

In an email to CBC News, a spokesperson for the company had this to say:

"When Mallinckrodt acquired Questcor in 2014, Synacthen Depot was one of the products in the portfolio. It was losing money then and still is. Moreover, in the spring of 2014, Mallinckrodt was told by the existing supplier of the product that they would cease production in early 2016.”

Unfortunately, not even Health Canada will tell citizens where the drug is made, because the information is deemed “proprietary.”

Back in 2013, Questcor acquired the rights to Synacthen in a $135 million dollar deal. Parents like Mike Bartenhagen from Omaha, Nebraska, who joined an infantile spasm support group in 2002, believes the opinion of companies like Questcor and Mallinckrodt are in it to “screw somebody else (like insurance companies and public health plans), and not the parents.” Horrified by the thought of children not being able to receive treatment, he urges the government to get their money back.

This isn’t the first high-profile case we’ve heard about drug prices being raised this year; a gigantic overnight increase in Daraprim caused a stir when the 62-year-old drug went from $13.50 to $700 a tablet, courtesy of Martin Shkreli, who acquired the drug via his company Turing Pharmaceuticals. Besides these specific cases, it’s no surprise that the price of prescription drugs is on the rise in both Canada and the United States.

Own The Conversation

Ask The Big Question: Should people be coming down hard on governments that allow this to happen, who claim ignorance due to private property claims?

Disrupt Your Feed: If a pharmaceutical company sees it can profit from raising the price of a drug, chances are they’ll do it every time.

Drop This Fact: It was revealed last year that the Mallinckrodt-Questcor deal received U.S. antitrust approval.